The Hanging Straw
by aubrey1
Summary: "He wants to run and keep running and leave them all to their fate. Ginny, Luna, Seamus; he would abandon them all in this moment." While the wizarding world stands in awe of the warriors of the Battle of Hogwarts, Neville finds that adjusting to his new life and reputation takes a different kind of strength.


There had been no fear the first time around. At least not that he remembers. He supposes there must have been fear in the moment. He'd courted death, after all. Voldemort's furious red eyes are still crystal clear in his memory, as is an army of death eaters, ready to tear him apart; ready-_eager_- to make him feel pain he could never imagine.

But no, fear was absent. All he remembers is anger; a defiance that absorbed all like a black hole. Can an emotion be so intense that if devours everything else? It must be so, because the anger is all that comes back to him upon recall. It's a giant bubble filling his chest, making it hard to breathe. Neville can feel his heart pounding against his ribcage, against his eardrums and fingertips and the balls of his feet. He'll kill them all; do whatever it takes to wipe those smug smirks off their faces. So they killed Harry. So what? Harry was the symbol, yes, but he wasn't the army. If they thought his death was any more important than Remus's or Tonks' or Fred's or Colin's or any of the others they'd lost along the way…

but then the world slows and everything changes. The anger wavers, hesitant, waves lapping against a shore before retreating quickly back to some hidden corner inside him. What had consumed him and made him strong only seconds ago is now as dormant as it has been for the vast majority of his life. It's replaced by wide-eyed fear and _whatthefuckamIdoing_ playing on a loop in his brain on maximum volume. Because this is not the Battle of Hogwarts, and he is not the Snake Slayer. He dimly recognizes a familiar chorus of _NOTREAL_, but it sounds as if it's being yelled by someone from the other side of the mountains, and he can't summon the will to pay attention to it with the pounding death drums rumbling in his head.

"_When hell freezes over?_" Voldemort is approaching him now. He clasps his hands lightly behind his back, completely untroubled, and takes slow, measured steps forward. He holds Neville's eyes in an unblinking, unmerciful staring match that the younger would gladly concede if he could only force himself to look away.

There will be no Sorting Hat this time; no sword to save him.

"We have our own version of hell," Voldemort continues softly. In another world he may be talking to a lover. "We'll be happy to introduce you to it."

He wets himself. A thunderous laughter erupts from the death eaters and his knees give way as a volley of dirt and small stones are pelted at him, intended less for harm and more to further his humiliation.

And still Voldemort advances.

The death eaters fall silent again as their lord draws even closer, sensing that the end is near and revelling in it. Neville almost wishes they would continue their taunts; the silence is infinitely worse. The only sound is the sickening lullaby of fear and regret backed by the beating drum of his own heart that no one else can hear. He wants to run. Not just back behind the line, no. He wants to run and keep running and leave them all to their fate. Ginny, Luna, Seamus, he would abandon them all in this moment. But his bones and muscles betray him. His knees rooted to the ground as death looms over him.

He tries to beg. He tries to plead for mercy. He'd tell them everything, do _anything_ if they would spare his life. Surely that's a fair trade? But like his limbs, his traitorous mouth remains still, dooming him.

Voldemort stands silent, staring at him for a long time. Through the rush of blood in his ears, Neville vaguely wonders what he's waiting for. Can he somehow hear his mental pleading? Is he considering the bargain Neville would make were he able to speak?

When the pale hand reaches forward he should flinch, would have if he were physically capable of movement. But he doesn't flinch and he says nothing as fingers, (fingers longer even than he remembers,) wrap themselves all the way around his neck.

And then the pain.

It blinds him. Pain such as no one has ever experienced in the history of the world, surely. It explodes out of his forehead and he can think of nothing except that his skull is undoubtedly splitting open, spilling his brains all over the ground at his knees. He has no grandmother who spent years comparing him to a father's reputation that he could never live up to. He has no father to even have a reputation, nor a mother, and they're most certainly not sitting in a room of gray in St. Mungo's at this very moment. There is no Professor Snape to terrify him. There is no Hogwarts, even. He has no friends to fight for, (or abandon.) He has only pain and that is all he has ever had.

It is all he will ever have.

* * *

><p>Neville wakes in a sea of his own sweat, jerking upright and gasping not enough air into lungs that feel like they haven't had oxygen in years. A confusion of blankets and sheets tangle around his legs and terrifies him further. He struggles with the mass for a moment before throwing it off to bare himself to the chill of wherever he is. A wall of black meets his eyes and his gaze darts uselessly around the room.<p>

The smell is what brings him back, for his eyes take a long time to adjust to the darkness. But as he calms down enough to acknowledge what his senses are telling him he recognizes the smell of the aromatic patch of lemongrass he'd planted last summer. He dimly registers that the balmy temperature is the same at which he always keeps his own room. And though it startles him, he recognizes the sudden sound of his gran's house-elf, Dimbles, shuffling past his door. Eventually, his eyes join the show and slowly begin to reveal the familiar outlines of bedposts, bookshelves, and a virtual forest of various plantlife.

He is in his bedroom, and from what he can tell he must have kept quiet throughout the dream. Quiet enough, at least, that this time Dimbles didn't feel the need to scamper in, huge eyes seeming to shine with their own light as he'd cast about for the intruder that must certainly be murdering him. There had been no murderer, of course. Not anymore anyway.

He hadn't had the dream often. This made only the third time since the Battle four months ago. And he hadn't screamed this time like he had throughout the first dream. He hadn't retched all over his lap the moment his eyes opened like he had last time. Maybe he was getting over it. _He wasn't._ Maybe things were getting back to normal. _They weren't._

That tiny voice in his head, (less tiny sometimes than others,) isn't his own. He doesn't know who it belongs to. There's a familiar kind of sarcastic edge to it that he can't quite place. Not Gran certainly. She'd never had patience for sarcasm. Malfoy, perhaps? But the accent is slightly off and anyway, Draco hardly has time to crawl into his brain at the moment, what with trying to keep from being thrown in Azkaban and all. Snape? It's certainly cruel enough. He wonders if Snape would go to the trouble of continuing the torment of his most scorned pupil. Maybe he's bored in hell or heaven or wherever people go when they move _on_.

He leans over and into his own body, cradling his head in his heads, grateful beyond reason that tonight he can recover himself alone, in peace. His breathing is slowing, but the terror of the dream is more hesitant to recede. Every cell in his body is on edge and he can feel each of them. He could probably count them all if he wanted; a bastardized version of counting sheep. The antique and horribly ugly clock on the wall, (a relic of some antique and horribly ugly relative who he can't remember at the moment,) reads 5:19. No reason to attempt to go back to sleep, not that his still too rapid heartbeat and sweating palms would allow for that anyway.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he scrubs his hands over his face once more before shifting his weight to his feet and rising. Moving through the maze of vegetation with a practiced ease that has long since turned into muscle-memory, he drags a casual palm across the cushiony petals of the flowering bellandonna. The familiar softness ironically calms his frayed nerves a bit.

A large mirror stands to the side of his wardrobe. Like most everything in the room-in the house-it's beautifully old and elaborately decorated and he hates it. Another delicate item to be looked at and never touched. He's grateful that at this early hour it's dark enough that he doesn't have to avoid his reflection as he dresses in his slate gray robes that delegate him as an Auror-in-training.

He has to double back before he reaches the door to retrieve his wand off his bedside nightstand. Even now, it's an afterthought. All of these years, and his wand isn't truly part of his identity. He can't imagine his gran letting her wand out of her sight for a moment, and friends like Hermione or Harry would undoubtedly feel the absence of their wands immediately. Admittedly, it had helped immensely when Gran had finally seen fit to buy him his own. _Not that she'd had a choice. He'd had made sure of that._ And his new wand felt much friendlier in his own hand; softer somehow. He was fond of it, but he could easily leave it behind and go through his days much as usual.

That's not entirely true, he had to admit. He might not require a wand, but Auror training did, which is where he'd have to be heading in a few short hours time.

Thus retrieved, the cherry-wood wand accompanies him through the hallway and down one, then another flight of stairs. Photos and paintings watch him silently. They're always silent in the dark, and even during the day they never speak to Neville, though they might whisper behind ineffectual walls of hands about how he'd shamed their good name this time. He wonders how everyone in wizarding world could be familiar with his _(astounding! heroic! noble!)_ reputation after the Battle, but the photographic residents within his own house continue to regard him with contempt and disgrace. Their comments, painfully stinging in his youth, had long since stopped bothering him. For several years now he'd been laughing off their sniping, but now there doesn't seem to be anything funny about it. Nothing funny about anything anymore, really. He keeps his head down and hurries into the relative warmth of the kitchen.

Dimbles is already elbow deep with breakfast, but turns and beams at Neville with his usual good-natured, gap-toothed smile.

"Master Neville, sir! You is up early again!"

Neville nods and smiles tiredly back. Neville secured a soft spot in Dimbles heart long ago, though he isn't sure how. Nevertheless, he has always been grateful for one face at his home that is unfailingly happy to see him. Many years ago, the elf had been beside himself watching family members try to cajole, scare, and torment magic out of the young boy. Dimbles was happier than anyone else watching ten year old Neville bounce safely down the driveway.

"Good morning, Dimbly," he says. The elf grimaces at the nickname, but Neville knows it's for show. "Just anxious for work, I guess." The lie is out of his mouth quickly and smoothly, but Dimbles clucks beside him as he takes a blueberry and pops it into his mouth.

"You is needing a drought of Dreamless Sleep, Dimbles is thinking."

Damn. So he hadn't been as quiet as he'd thought. He wonders how long Dimbles had been standing outside his door before hearing him wake and deciding to leave him be. The dream had been so vivid, just as had the other two. What always convinces him of the validity of the dream is how closely the first part resembles what actually happened. Waking or asleep, he remembers exactly how angry he was; how in that moment he thinks he's actually capable of killing a person. Or people. Many many people. It feels like he'd slipped into someone else's skin for a moment; someone brave and selfless. Because he knows for a certainty that if he were put in the same situation today, he'd not react the same. He just had to look to his last dream for evidence. The weight of crippling guilt drops into his stomach yet again.

After he fails to come up with a reply that doesn't sound pathetic even to his own ears, he grabs a mug of coffee and heads out the door, throwing a quick, "Be back tonight!" over his shoulder. He knows the house elf is probably even now spluttering protests. His grandmother disapproves of his daily ramblings through Muggle London, especially when he disregards the manners he was bred with, such as neglecting to pay her good morning. But without his regular outings he feels sure he would have lost his mind by now. The anonymity of blending in with the crowd, the absence of expectations, hell, the absence of _magic_, makes him feel more comfortable, more grounded than anywhere else he knows.

Jostled and hurried by people on their way to work even at this early hour, he lets his mind go blank and his feet move on autopilot. There is never a particular destination, and he doesn't pay much attention to anything besides the concrete beneath his feet. Today is bitterly cold for September and he wishes he'd thought to bring a coat. A warming charm would be simple and discreet enough, but he rails against it. In the last few months, he's felt a peculiar reluctance in doing magic unless necessary. Although he's shivering and hugs himself against the chill, this doesn't seem a situation to warrant his wand.

Unsurprisingly, the dream comes back to him unbidden, much as it seems to do when he's asleep. Not that his normal dreams are more pleasant. He's seen more death and gore and heartbreak than anyone should have by the tender age of 18, and those are the images that most often visit him in the dark. Colin Creevey's broken body, so small even though he was only a year younger than Neville himself. Lavender Brown, once so beautiful that Neville often caught himself openly gaping at her as she walked down the hall, now disfigured beyond recognition. The Weasley family torn to pieces by their loss, when really it could have been so many more of them. Could have been all of them. _Could have been all of us._

But the dream from last night is more terrifying, more disturbing than any of the others. Neville has known fear his whole life. He's intimately familiar with the cold fingers sliding up his back and into his lungs. Slowly at first, but then in a rush it's upon him and he can't breathe and everything is black around the edges. His gran used to elicit that same reaction when he was a very young boy. Things were much simpler when all he'd had to worry about was embarrassing his family. But then again, maybe that's not true. Fear is fear, and it felt as real then as it does now.

He should be used to it by now, then; fear. Especially tinged with shame as it is in the dream. Each time though, he enters the fight anew, challenges Voldemort, and then shrinks away like a cringing dog.

He gets a shock when he checks his watch and finds that he's already 13 minutes late for work. Cursing himself and simultaneously sighing regretfully that his morning walk has brought him no comfort today, he searches out an unremarkable alleyway and disapparates.


End file.
